The present disclosure is directed to exercise equipment and more particularly to a sit box for use on the carriage of a reformer exercise apparatus.
An exemplary conventional reformer exercise apparatus 10 is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. The apparatus 10 includes a rectangular frame 12 and a movable carriage 14 mounted for reciprocal movement between a head end 16 and a foot end 18 of the frame 12. The carriage 14 has a generally flat cushioned upper surface 20 and a pair of fixed or removable shoulder stops 22 fastened to the carriage 14. A conventional sit box 24 is positioned crosswise on the carriage 14 in FIG. 1. The conventional sit box 24 is positioned longitudinally on the carriage 14 in FIG. 2. The sit box 24 is a hollow box having no bottom, and a solid top, with four vertical sides. The sit box 24 is most securely positioned on the carriage 14 when it is butted up against the shoulder stops 22 and the bottom periphery of all four sides rests on the upper surface 20 of the carriage 14. A user of the apparatus 10 must carefully position the sit box 24 on the carriage 14 such that is centrally positioned and equally supported along its bottom periphery on the carriage 14. In FIG. 1, this is achieved by butting the box 24 against the shoulder stops 22. In FIG. 2, this is achieved by ensuring that the sides of the box 24 and the ends both rest on the upper surface of the carriage 14.
Care must be taken, however, to ensure that the box is centered and that a user, when sitting or lying on the box 24, doesn't put too much of his or her weight on either end of the box 24 as those ends are not supported by the carriage 14 if positioned as shown in FIG. 1. A user should always be properly centered on the box 24 and the box 24 properly centered, in turn, on the carriage 14. Furthermore, conventional sit boxes 24 are typically made of heavy hardwood plywood and thus are somewhat difficult for small users of the equipment to handle and position properly on a reformer exercise apparatus. What is therefore needed is a more lightweight sit box that is easy to manipulate and position, has a relatively large bottom surface area to securely mount on the carriage of a reformer, and easily center properly on the reformer carriage.